TCG Bulletin
July 2009, Volume 32, Issue 7
ARTS EDUCATION
Nation's Arts Report Card Released
The U.S. Department of Education has announced the results of the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the Arts (NAEP) detailing how much eighth-grade students know and are able to do in the areas of music and visual arts. The arts assessment was administered in 1997 in music, theatre and visual arts; because of budget constraints and the small percentage of schools with dance and theatre programs, students were only assessed in music and visual arts in 2008.
The results of the assessment reveal barriers to student achievement
in the arts, with significant racial/ethnic, gender and socioeconomic
gaps. In response to the results, the Secretary of Education and
senior officials at the NEA and the National Assessment Governing
Board called for substantially increasing access to arts learning
and significantly improving the quality of national data collection
on the status of arts education in the nation's schools. U.S. Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan said, "This Arts Report Card should
challenge all of us to make K-12 arts programs more available to
America's children and youth. Such programs not only engage students'
creativity and academic commitment today, but they uniquely equip
them for future success and fulfillment. We can and should do better
for America's students."
Action: Visit the Nation’s Report Card website to the read the full NAEP report. Visit the Arts Education Partnership website to access the online toolkit, Maximizing the Nation's Arts Report Card.
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